EddieSE3P

My names Eddie, I'm 23 and Live in Washington and this is my introductory thread to the RX-8 Community.


First things first, My RX-8 and how I came to get it. Had recently sold my 99 BMW M3 to pay off some bills and hoped to step away from the car scene a bit seeing as this was my 4th project car and I felt I needed to sort my life out, well long story short that didn't last long. About a month after I sold it I for some reason got the urge to look on autotrader at cars and found this rx8 in Montana, Now I had always liked rx8s even as controversial as they were and upon finding this one thought "Oh that would be cool to own but maybe another time." Well not even a day later I would be sending the dealership it was at an email inquiring about the car. (I guess the car bug was rooted deeper in me than I imagined.) About 2 days and a spur of the moment decision later there I was in kalispell Montana at this dealership looking at the very rx8 I had seen on autotrader 4 days prior. As you can see I ended up purchasing the car and road tripped it from kalispell all the way back to Seattle in a day, something I would love to do again though not all in 1 day.

So now here I am. A ridiculously clean 2006 RX-8 in Mica Red with not even 30k miles. Yes it is an AT but i kind of like it over a manual, especially the paddle shifters. I did some research on my way back from Montana to the best of my ability on the main reliability issues with the car. Most of what I've found seems to be from lack of maintenance or care for the car. Any tips on anything else I can do or should do to help prolong the reliability would be greatly appreciated since this is my first rotary powered car.

Now for my plans with the rx8 I had a couple ideas in mind:
Idea 1: Keep it bone stock, replace stuff as it breaks and keep it lower milage.

Idea 2: Do light mods, Intake, Exhaust, Coilovers, Wheels, Tires, Ect. Basic Bolt on.

Idea 3: Turbo it, I don't know how relevant the threads I read on here are but If I were to turbo it I was thinking around 300-350HP, Is that even an option on an auto trans or would I need to build it up?

Any Tips or Pointers to certain posts or threads that would better help me is greatly appreciated, Like i said this is my first rotary powered car so I'm very ignorant to the "basic" stuff most veteran rotary enthusiasts might know but I'm always willing to learn.


I hope to be somewhat active on this forum and maybe even meet up with some other RX8 owners at meets or what not. I personally go to a local meet at the BobaLust in the south center mall every Friday but that's more a local meet not a rotary specific thing.


Anywho thanks for reading my post and i hope to meet some more rotary enthusiasts!

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

Welcome to the addiction....err ...Forum.
congrats on picking up that clean 8, sounds like you're already enjoying it and off to a good start

Idea 1 is a great starting point but being as how you're a car guy you'll quickly find yourself in Idea 2 territory.
Avoid Idea 3 , that's a long expensive road to do it correctly and 350 whp will NOT be easy to get ,let alone cracking 300hp

Just stay up on the maintenance , read up on our New Owners Thread and I think you'll enjoy the car.
Little advice, ignition and spark is very important on this car so look into replacing ignition coils, wires, and plugs since they're most likely the originals if the car only has 30k.
BHR makes a great ignition upgrade but OEM will also work really well since they eventually changed the design and the newer version coils hold up better than the originals.

CaymanRotary

Congrats on your new RX8! Hope it serves you well. Idea#1 and #2 go for it. Idea #3, don't bother turbo charging it. It's a high compression engine and you won't be able to make much gains for the cost and modifications needed to turbocharge this car. Also, it being an automatic lower your chances for success considerably. Dont worry though, this car makes plenty of power with a good ignition system and exhaust (where this engine has the most restriction).

Check out the new owner's sticky and get to reading. Its a very reliable engine actually so don't be afraid to drive it. The absolute first thing you should do is a compression test to see how intact the engine is after 30k miles (should have done before purchase but I digress...). After you confirm the engine is all good, do fluid changes and repair any issues it has, if any.

PS: Pictures?

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Welcome. RX8help.com is the site you want to read up on, it collects info from here. There are reliability mods and preventative maintenance that you should consider -- starting with ignition coils.

BigCajun

iTrader: (1)

Keep the powertrain stock and do appearance mods.
Turbo on a AT is a waste of money.

EddieSE3P

EddieSE3P

I uploaded them but they have to be verified by a mod first, shouldn't be too long. Also wish my camera picked up the flake better.

EddieSE3P

I thought about it, But i did want a touch more power. Would a port do anything or should I just do stock port with upgraded ignition and exhaust?

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Boosting a 4-port isn't the worst idea IMO, but it all comes down to budget. There's no cheap solutions here, a turbo kit will run 5-6k once installed, more with tuning by someone who knows what they're doing. You could try swapping a 6-port automatic combo in there, from a 2006+ automatic, but you're a bit on your own to make it all work properly and again north of $5k to finish.

You'll get tiny gains from exhaust and ignition (really just maintaining factory levels more than increasing anything), but that's still valueable.

Ideally, if more power is your goal, you find a 6-port car in a similar condition, and change cars. That could be a near-zero cost improvement if you then sell this one. But finding a good condition one these days is... a thing.

EddieSE3P

Mine is a 2006 unless you were meaning 2007 or later?

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Hmm so is it really a 4-port then?

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

If it's an 06 it should be a 6 port

CaymanRotary

I also have an 06 RX8 6 port auto. Its actually better than I expected. Obviously the manual 6 speed is the best but the 06-08 auto are also a lot of fun.

40th8Jake

Welcome man. I cant add anything helpful that hasn’t been said. But I can’t help but stress that modding this engine for power is a waste of time and money. Not to discourage you but to help man. They came pretty much maxed out from the factory. If you want power, best to start a CD for a Rx7 or REW swap. 🤙

I’ve always fancied these cars in red. Good choice. The first one I drove (my friends) was red and I fell in love with the smoothness and handling. Enjoy it bro.